Page 54 - Fortier Family History

was misspelled over time, it's partly because of the way the notary wrote and heard the name. It must be that most people at that time were illiterate: they could not tell the notary how to write their name. The notary then had to rely on the sound of the word. There is also the fact that the notary or enumerator may be of English nationality, which plays a great role in writing, such as the census I just mentioned. For the next ancestors, I collected little information about them. I had access only to the titles of the acts and not the entire act. I am in the process of having them photocopied in Quebec so that I can consult them in full. Nevertheless, one can brush portraits of the ancestors. For the next ancestor Paul, he is a “Carter” according to notarial papers, he drove carts probably as a transporter. He married Marie Joseph Barbeau (or -«bot») in 1726. He lived in the village of Saint-Vallier in Quebec City. He had ten children, some of whom died young. In 1729, he would have yielded land by the administration of the Hotel Dieu de Quebec (a hospital). In 1742, he would have exchanged, perhaps this same land, with another person. We are going to have three Jean Baptistes in a row now as ancestors. The first was a carter just like his father Paul. Jean-Baptiste married Marie Marguerite Duperé in 1751 in Charlesbourg. He would have had three children with her. In notarial papers, one can see that he often sells land, three times to be precise, and buys one towards the end of his life. The second Jean Baptiste was a «maître voiturier», a job that is like a carter. It could well be that the family helped each other between father and son, because their jobs were related. He married Madeleine Renaud in 1774 in Notre-Dame-de-Québec. She died in 1786. Jean-Baptiste would have remarried a second time to Marie Louise Hébert who will die in 1801. At each death, Jean-Baptiste will put his minor children in guardianship to himself with the authorization of the relatives of the deceased woman. At the end of his marriage, he will have to take care of his minor children alone. Later, he would have made an agreement with three of his children in 1797. He had bought land in his past, so he is likely to redistribute it to his children. The third was Jean Baptiste, who had an interesting life. He would have been a wheelwright according to his marriage certificate of 1797 with Louise Dorion at Notre-Dame-de-Quebec. A wheelwright was a craftsman specializing in wood and metal. He conceived, manufactured, maintained or adapted and repaired the vehicles before motorizing them. The more Jean-Baptiste ages, the more his social status changes. In fact, Jean-Baptiste would have gone from cartwright to syndic of a church, then from bourgeois to keeper of the peace (juge de paix). This change of status appears in the censuses and in the marriage certificate of his sons. By being involved in the Saint-Roch Church in Quebec, he would have had a certain prestige that would have helped him improve his social status. This prestige is found especially in Pierre George Roy's book Les Fils de Québec, a book whose author makes short biographies of certain historical figures of Quebec City. In the section devoted to our ancestor Jean-Baptiste, we can read: "Jean Baptiste Thomas dit Bigaouette, born April 4, 1775, from the marriage of Jean Baptiste Thomas dit Bigaouette and Madeleine Renaud. When in 1811, Plessis the bishop of Quebec allowed the construction of a church in the Faubourg Saint Roch, he appointed a body of trustees to handle the chruch. One of the trustees was Jean Baptiste Thomas dit Bigaouette. He who had devoted so much to the construction of the church saw it burn twice in 1816 and again in 1845. In this last fire which took place May 28, 1845, and which destroyed a good part of the suburb, Jean Baptiste Thomas dit Bigaouette, in trying to save the reliquary which contained the heart of Mgr. Plessis, burned himself so badly that he died six days later, on June 3, 1845, after enduring untold suffering.” I thought it was because of this incident if there is a Bigaouette street in Quebec City. By looking on the site of toponymy of the streets of the government of Quebec, we can read that this street appeared in a map of the city in 1891 in honor of a Thomas dit Bigaouette, whose first name is not mentioned. He appears to be an herbalist who owned land nearby. He was known as a charlatan who cared for everyone. The street has no connection with our ancestor. There is also the fact that this street is found in Saint-Vallier and not in Saint-Roch and that it appeared after the year of death of Jean-Baptiste.